has drawn concerns from residents<\/a> who worry about its local environmental and infrastructure impacts. All four candidates \u2014 two Democrats and two Republicans \u2014 emphasized the importance of answering community questions before moving forward with development.<\/p>\nDemocratic candidate Ashley Bean Thornton said residents deserve comprehensive information about the project\u2019s effects.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the way from, \u2018Is there enough water? Who gets first dibs on the water if it runs out? Is the electric bill going to go up? What are we going to do about the noise and light pollution?\u2019\u201d Thornton said.<\/p>\n
Her Democratic opponent, Janessa Givens, proposed a three-part framework for evaluating the project: whether it creates permanent jobs for local residents, whether it protects the county\u2019s water resources, and whether it grows the tax base without surrendering more value than it gains.<\/p>\n
The two Republican candidates aligned with their Democratic counterparts on the need for greater oversight.<\/p>\n
Pat Curry, the current seat holder, said he opposes the data center development, citing insufficient information about the project\u2019s resource demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, they have no idea what their use of resources is going to be, nor do they have any idea if it will be electricity or water, both huge things for me,\u201d Curry said. \u201cI want transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republican candidate Ralph Patterson received applause from the forum audience after calling for the Texas Legislature to establish specific legal authority for data center regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the politicians are drooling over the tax base that it represents, meanwhile they\u2019ve really lost sight of the impact on citizens,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n
The two Democratic candidates will compete in the primary election on March 3, as will the two Republicans. The winners from each party will face off in the November general election.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KWTX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WACO, Texas (KWTX) – Candidates running for the Texas House District 56 seat agreed unanimously at tonight\u2019s candidate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[69066,5421,69067,69063,69068,69069,69064,27,69062,29,69065,28],"class_list":["post-170919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-ashley-bean-thornton","tag-data-center","tag-janessa-givens","tag-lacy-lakeview-data-center","tag-pat-curry","tag-ralph-patterson","tag-ross-data-center","tag-texas","tag-texas-data-center","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-house-district-56","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}